Have you heard anything about this???

I didn't bother watching the news that closely during the 'war' (I'd call it more along the lines of a major battle...) but I believe the American causualties were indeed Americans. I haven't heard much about this, so I really don't know how our government went about it. As far as I know, I believe in times of peace immigrants can choose to join the army to attain citizenship, but I'm still young, and I don't know much more beyond my 1 year of political science I had this year. Perhaps it is a little fishy, but the US wasn't using anyone as a human meat shield, they were extending an offer (if they were, I don't know much about it...) albeit a sort of constricting offer (join the army or be deported most likely), but it was an offer for work (money), benefits of being in the military, and the ability to stay in the US. I'm well aware the country in which I live makes mistakes both inside and outside its borders, but we still manage to do a pretty good job, at least so it seems. I don't intend to try and change anyone's opinion of America (as it seems most people don't like us right now) but we're trying to do something, we certainly can't do everything, and America as a whole should not be entirely to blame (we still live here though/support the gov. so we can't all just say that we have no blame what so ever, if ther is blame to be had). My political science professor likened our government to a group of high school students, we bicker/fight/make mistakes/and also do some pretty good stuff too. (and remember, the news is inherently bias, even if it tries to claim to be fair/balanced/unbiased).

Originally posted by maraanderson
Another question: does anyone agree with Bush on his policies?

Btw: I am not fond of any government, they all seem fishy to me. The US government is notorious for being "fishy" to say the least!

Hey Hey Hey now, as a political science major, i dont appreciate those foul words :D haha. Governments, especially the United States' might seem fishy, and in some instances, might be fishy, but without government, a country can't survive. People view Government with the unfortunate attitude of "100% perfect or FAILED." In modern society...lol okay, im not even going to get started, this will be the longest post in TPS history. Just think how difficult it would be to appropriately please millions of individuals, all of a different race, religion, sex, age, and so forth. Now picture doing this without one or two of those millions of individuals getting upset with you and the decisions you made :D

Don't get all bent out of shape fellas I am an American citizen too, born and raised for the most part. I can't help but feel governments are run by greed and power, not to help their citizens. Seems as though they just try to make us content so we will elect them.

Ah, wonderfully put split . I'm not much into poli. sci. but its good to know whats going on and maybe a little bit about why its going on in the world :p . As for Bush, he certainly isn't one of my favorites, but I'll support him nonetheless (unless of course he starts trying to adopt policies of turning the elderly into nutritious crackers, as my poli. sci. professor would often joke about as a good policy in his lectures :p ). He certainly isn't perfect, and things (ie economy) don't look quite as good as a few years or so ago, but we're not exactly spiraling down hill yet, so he must be at least somewhat competent:p .

Im just playing around mara, hehe :D I never said governments werent like you described...I was just justifying their existence.

Considering what it takes to get into the business of being a politician in America (I know a little bit about the process, nothing in depth though) it seems like its pretty hard not to at least seem greedy and powerhungry while going for/in office. Ya gotta get a lot of money to simply run a campaign, and you're constantly looking towards the next election, 'cause politics is your job, and the only way to stay in business is to stay elected. Not that its excusable to be greedy and powerhungry...

In the end I don't think anyone knows what to believe anymore, it (the world) all seems like one big mess imo. If you look back on history though, was there ever really a time when it wasn't?

Well, if you ask me;
The bush administration is the antichrist.

America is run by companies.
The largest part of americans are brainwashed sheep.
USA is not freeing people anywhere. There is always a selfish reason. (sometimes the reason might be PR, so drop the "hey, he gives money for aids!" BS)
It's all about the money, inside the US.
Oh well, I'm rambling and insulting some patriotic idi...er...persons.

The Iraq "rebuilding" is a joke. The tasks are given to american companies. Ffs, give the jobs to the local people. Nooo, it's not "profitable". Oh...sorry.

And the war was not about oil. Of course not. Only this will give the coalition the power to keep their hand on the tap, and have control over where the oil will go and how much.
That's why France vetoed, they get their oil from Iraq. Now they have to go through the US. Oh, how convenient. (sp?)
Same goes for Russia.

This war was a joke.
People backing it up are either stupid or mentally blind.

The thing that sickens me most is that I hear people talking about the US economy going up because of the war, and it being a good thing *thumbs up*. Jesus christ you're talking about killing people. Taking their lives.

And at this point someone's probably going to think about the "hey, saddam's a bad guy!" thing. Sure he was, but lol...look outside your borders. There are worse things out there.
And day by day the "immediate threat" claim is getting publically more and more ridiculous.

I saw the part of "correspondant" on BBC world about the media's role in the war.
They sneaked a camera into a "nono" room.
There was a whiteboard where there was written down a list of stuff NOT to be shown to the media in any circumstances.
One was "bombing accuracy", and another was "market bombings".

It's sick. Makes me want to burn a flag.

Oh, and the fact that the private lynch or whatever her name was..
she never was shot nor stabbed by the iraqees. The wounds she got, were from when she crashed her humvee.

I don't know what it takes for people NOT trusting the US government and their lies. Apparently it wil never happen.

I'm getting too angry to type anything that makes sense. Sorry.
Sorry for the rant. *crawls back under his rock*

Don't get your underwear in a bunch Paavo.....hehe :p

You have some very valid points, but I for one am not one of those sheep. I have always in some ways felt the way you feel, and I am an American citizen. The sad thing is that the government has many Americans convinced they are doing good for honest upright reasons. Behind the scenes is always different from what we see and hear. Media sux btw.

I have to say though... the grass is not greener on the other side.

*Edit* I always thought being a dual citizen and having lived in so many places gave me a broader perspective...but in retrospect I think most everyone can see through the "public image" of government.

Hehe, these kind of...discussions are always fun.
Of course America had to be in it for the money/oil, but the government certainly can't outright say "we're goin' into this for our own greedy purposes" and Saddam was a bad guy, sure there is a lot of bad stuff out there, perhaps worse. Saddam was killing/torturing people, to my knowledge at least, someting probably should have been done eventually. Perhaps the US could have waited a while longer and found a little better way to do this, but if you didn't want to start a war in order to stop Saddam (and his actions weren't exactly permissible) you'd have to wait for him to die of age (then someone in his likeness would probably rise to he occasion). Saddam wasn't about to graciously leave his throne, if he even made a move for it it would've been over for him anyways, so to him the best option was to hold on to the money/power he had. People were gonna die sometime, by Saddam's hands or by people trying to 'free' them.
As far as there being other problems in the world, the US can't try and go after everything at once, you have to pick and choose your battles. Of course if there are worse problems that aren't advantageous to solve the US isn't going to jump on those as soon as ones like Iraq, but the US is doing something.
Again, don't trust media (but don't completely deny them, they may be biased, but the next best thing is to see it yourself, and you can't go off and check out everything yourself, just be sure to take it all in with a grain of salt, so to speak).
I wasn't aware the 'rebuilding' was being taken care of by American companies, perhaps not the best idea, but who else has the resources? Sure it'd be good to have someone from the area to at least pitch in, after all, they know he people there the best, but you'd still need the tremendous resources that simply aren't in Iraq.
Private Lynch...eh...whoopdeedoo, there were plenty of causualties in many wars on both sides, the media is the one that usually likes to put people on pedestals, they want a news story they can do about a hero(ine) that the audience can admire thus more viewers. Her fame will die down quickly, just like the last casualty hero that the media put on a pedestal.
I backed the war once it started, at least in part (not fully for two reasons, 1 I didn't feel I knew enough to be allowed any judgement on the matter, not that anyone knew enough... and 2 there were obvious reasons it wasn't a fully moral war, if such a thing exists). But I backed it 'cause I live here and friends/family are in the armed forces, people I knew went there to fight, 'cause it was their job and they were ordered to, and we were doing something to stop the 'bad' guy from causing more suffering.
I didn't have faith in the gov to do a great job at rebuilding, really how can you? It takes so many resources to get a country on its feet in the world today, and America isn't about to pour all its resources into one country just to give it a nice little jump start, but its not just going to let it on its own now. It takes many years too to start up a nice semi-stable country, so you can't expect to see Iraq become a wonderful disneyland fantasy right away, of course you gotta also see when you're just screwing things up instead of making it better.
Anyways, that was fun :p I try to see both sides as fairly as I can, but I'm human and inherently biased, I don't know everything about this, so I'd imagine that perhaps there are some ignorant statements above, but I can't just be in the middle all the time, or else both sides of the story will hate be for not choosing their side :p .